Monday Writing day. I'm drafting an editorial about measuring culture in healthcare organisations. I immerse myself in anthropologist Clifford Geertz's “Notes on a Balinese cockfight,” one of the finest (and funniest) ethnographic studies ever published. I struggle to transfer the ideas to the NHS.

Sample size calculation for a diabetes grant application. An old friend, now a multicentre trialist, has sent me a piece of software, and I've connected …